


triptych

by hanktalkin



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: 3 + 1, Asphyxiation, Assassination, Cave-In, Confessions, F/F, F/M, Girl Saves Girl, Hiding in Plain Sight, Invisibility, Multi, Near Death Experiences, Running Away, Snow, Team Talon (Overwatch), Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-19 06:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12405288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanktalkin/pseuds/hanktalkin
Summary: 3 Times the Talon Trio Died, and 1 Time They Actually Got Their Act Together and Died as a Team





	1. Ghost in the Machine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pally (palliris)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/palliris/gifts).



> 4 pally, who reinspired my love for these three

“Fuckity fuck fu-uck fuck,” Sombra mutters as she runs over blood-crusted snow.

Well, _runs_ is an exaggeration. But it’s the best a girl can do when carrying an eighty-four kilo sack of useless ghost.

“Wake up _buhíto,_ ” she demands to the to the Reaper at her shoulder. “We’ve got some new friends we _really_ don’t want to meet.”

Reaper’s only response is a creaking sigh, smoke billowing from the crags in his body like an engine that’s never been cleaned. He’s been like this for almost- god. Has it been a half an hour already? Thirty minutes she’s been hauling his steadily-increasing weight over filthy snow drifts while his breathing just gets weirder and weirder- (Too long. The point is that she’s been out here too long.)

It was the fucking Overwatchers that did this. (Overwatchers? Can she say that? Or do you just have to call them “Overwatch” all the time and hope no one has to talk about anyone specific?) An easy hit on a Russian base that went awry when someone had tipped off the fledging organization about its rival’s tomfoolery. They’d known who’d be leading—Reaper—and this time they were ready for him.

Sombra had pulled out the dart from his side herself. The effect hadn’t been immediate. One second he’s been fine, commanding the unit in that harsh tone of his, and the next he’d suddenly fallen to his knees.

Overwatch had found his weakness. He’d slowly started materializing, the nanodes that made up his smoke forgetting how to do their damn job and brining the once-wraith into harsh reality. Things had spiraled out of control from there, the squad with no commands and their secret weapon scratching at the dirt, unknowing what the hell had gone wrong. Sombra had found the instigator only later, once she had begun their desperate retreat.

The dart has two wings engraved in its side. _That bitch_.

Now Sombra hauls Reaper onto her shoulders. The fireman’s carry is all she can manage with him now, when he’s all but gone. “Damn Gabe. You really need to lose some weight,” she jokes, because it’s the only thing that keeps her from screaming and alerting their position.

She’s not used to him being weak. Being _mortal_. He’s supposed to be her goddamned rock, the thing their trio leans on. Now he’s leaning on her.

It’s surprising how much that terrifies her.

She crests the edge of a drift, looking back to where Talon agents are still being slaughtered. She runs, but that’s just the way she is. A scrapper, always looking to fight another day.

Reaper won’t be happy, but he’ll have to be alive to chew her out, so it’s a win-win.

Looking over her shoulder, she hears chopper blades before she sees them. _Ours_. And it is; she hails it, and it drops in front of her to kick up shards of ice. No questions, only chucking the massive body her commander inside and leaping through the open door.

They’re able to begin the reversal three hours later. She’s waiting outside Reaper’s room, own injuries fleetingly tended to, and she thinks her stomach might actually fall back out of her throat. She collapses into her chair with sigh.

The relief is surprising. More so than the terror. When someone dies, you move on, planning around the unforeseen event. If they recover, all the better.

What you don’t do is hold your breath. You don’t wait outside hospital rooms, nearly breaking down when they tell you that the dart was only meant to be a temporary sedative, and Overwatch hasn’t perfected its technique on Killing The Reaper.

In fact, what you _do_ do is start planning on a way to counteract that in the future. Now that the crisis is averted, its time to think of next time.

But Sombra instead sits in her chair and looks at Reaper’s door. The corners of her lips twitch, and she lives every so foolishly in the present.


	2. Deep Web

Widowmaker cracks her back, stiff from sitting in the same position for hours. But such is the life an assassin: hours in wait, patiently coiling her web, waiting for the precise instant for the kill...

“Hey _hermana_! Watcha thinking about?~”

The chipper voice in her earpiece twangs every muscle in Widow’s body like an out-of-tune violin. She sets her teeth against one another, white bones clickety-clacking and _she will absolutely not be perturbed by this_.

“Imagining how beautiful your skull would be if I split it open and looked at it from the inside,” she replies, trying and failing.

“ _Amélie_ ,” Sombra says, mock offense lilting her voice. “Not in _public_ …”

Widow rolls her eyes, and pressed one back to her scope. If it’s not the sores around her eye or the creaking in her back, it’s the purring in her ear that makes her question if she actually loves her job.

“Where are you?” she asks. As long as Sombra is paying attention, she might as well get some information.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Sombra taunts.

“Yes. I would. That is why I asked.” She adjusts her rifle, watching from where the deal is going to begin. “If you’re not in position, get there fast. The mission is starting soon.”

And it does. The deal goes as predicted, since when the troublesome weapons dealer shows her face, Widow puts a bullet right through it. Maybe her successor will be more cooperative with Talon’s wishes.

The battle breaks out after that, both sides drawing guns while Widow looks on. She’s able to pick off quite a few in the fight, but not as many as when a giant part of the warehouse rig falls and crushes the weapons dealer’s men. Sombra’s handiwork no doubt. The sound of crunching metal actually brings a twitch to the corner of her mouth, something that doesn’t happen often even at her own kills. She blames the hacker for wiggling her way into Widow’s affections.

She’s still smiling, looking down her sights, when she hears the man behind her.

Her reaction time is too slow. As good as she is, no human could move fast enough to dodge the three shots from his rifle at point blank range. What she _is_ fast enough to do is turn and see him, gun raised-

And witness his bullets freeze mid air.

It is wrong to say they disappear. More like they change, transforming into a shower of blood and electric purple as Sombra’s cloak fizzles out. The hacker stumbles, completing the half step she’s taken to get between Widow and her attacker, landing on her knees with the bullets in her gut.

The sight of a purple anime character suddenly appearing before him is enough to startle the man into hesitation. It’s more than enough time for Widow to dispatch him, lassoing a cord around his neck and sending him crashing to the ground.

She means to kill him slowly. She really does. But too many years of training for the cleanest most efficient kill has left her unable to even get _a_ _little_ pleasure out of making him beg for his life. Pity.

Widow is on Sombra next, supporting her shoulders and helping her onto her back while the hacker tries not to cough up blood.

“Oh, Widow. _Hola_ ,” she said as Widow held her carefully in her arms. “What are doing here? Is this not the little _niñas_ room?”

Widow opens her mouth, but for once found nothing biting she could say. The closest she can manage is, “what are you _doing_ up here?”

Sombra smirks. Her eyes are already somewhat frosted over. “Believe it or not, the view up here is _amazing_. If you weren’t looking down that gun all the time, you might notice.”

Widow doesn’t like the double meaning of that. She hates it.

She radios Talon. “We need extraction on the roof of warehouse B. One operative in need of immediate medical attention.”

If it were anyone else who was to ask, they would be promptly ignored. Talon foot soldiers die on the ground, filling out their duty for a small salary and a chance to indulge their violent tendencies. But Widow is no grunt and Sombra is no normal mercenary and they will come for her.

They _will_.

Theywilltheywilltheywill…

“Don’t do that _mi pequeña arañ,_ ” Sombra says, idly reaching up to smooth the corner of Widow’s face with her thumb. “You keep looking so worried, you’re going to get wrinkles before you reach forty.”

Sombra grins, a bit of blood flowing from the corner of her mouth. Widow’s cradling her, hand on the wound—no, _wounds_ —while the hacker makes jokes at her expense. This is too ridiculous. It can’t end like this. Not by some random street thug in the right place at the wrong time. It’s to sudden and-

“Why?” she demands of the little woman in her arms.

The smirk doesn’t fall from Sombra’s face. “Believe it or not, it was an accident. Saw a gun, stayed in visible, moved in the wrong sort of way to disarm him.”

She lies.

It’s so easy for her, Widow wonders how many words the hacker ever said that rang true. If she’s ever had an honest moment in her life. Even now, dying here, she’s a liar.

Liarliarliarliarliarliarliar…

“Liar,” she whispers.

And for once it makes Sombra’s mask slip.

Widow thinks of how she had been moving, appearing in the bullets like she’d taken an instinctual step forward. She must not have been to far away, a split-second decision, suddenly riddled with bullets while Widow finally looked up.

Sombra doesn’t look at her when she says, “don’t worry _hermana._ Won’t make a habit of it.”

And better to yell into the radio, hoping, praying if she were a different sort of woman, “I need extraction on the roof of-”

“We have your location Widowmaker. Stand by.”

All the pain comes rushing out of her lungs. She looks down at Sombra’s body, the one she’s still holding together on will and pressed hands. Sombra smiles.

“See? Like I told you, nothing to worry about. Enjoy your crow’s feet, love.”

And it’s all Widow can do not to smack her.


	3. Death and the Maiden

It doesn’t seem right that the sun is out. Reaper knows better than anyone that a man can die in daylight just as well as moonlight, but something about the way the sun beats against the canyon walls offends him. Like maybe it should poke its face behind a cloud for a second and have a little fucking respect.

Because someone is dead alright. Or will be, if he doesn’t find his way out of this goddamn canyon fast.

“I think we were supposed to take a left back there,” Widow mumbles sleepily in his arms.

Reaper growls, but only because he thinks she’s right. The sounds of pursuit are close behind them, footsteps echoing against the stone walls until there are hundred of them instead of just a dozen. He walks them into a dead end, and seethes.

“We’ll have to make a stand here,” he tells her.

She nods. “I will help. Give me back my gun.”

“You can’t even lift that right now,” he points out harshly. He’s not a kind man at the best of times, but his patience is wearing thin. The men who put a bullet in Widow’s hip and her shoulder are right behind them, trapping them like rats in a maze. “I’m leaving you here, I’ll come get you when they’re dead.”

He’s already slipping her onto the earth. She can’t walk and can barely make a fist with her bad arm, no way is he letting her near what happens next. But she grabs him with surprising strength before he can fully let her go.

“Fine then,” she replies, seeing the truth in his words. “But you can’t face them head on and alone. They will slaughter you.”

And he knows she’s right again. He can take out a dozen mortal men, but even he has his limits. The Talon agents are at the disadvantage here, boxed in and nowhere to go.

“I will be the distraction. If they find just me, they will lower their guard.”

His eyes flare behind the mask, boring into her. “You want to be the bait.”

She stares right back, letting him know that’s exactly what she wants. Her yellow irises glow in the sunlight, meeting him unflinchingly, staring death itself in the face while she offers herself up. He’s never met anyone like her: someone who is not even remotely afraid of the creature that hunkers before her like a dissolving gargoyle. Ever since he became this, no one ever had the balls to look him directly in the eyes and tell him he’s wrong.

Until they paired him with Widow. She is his equal, his partner. A fellow killer who knows something about becoming a monster that no one else on this fucking planet understands.

He nods.

“Alright. I’ll be close by.”

She takes her rifle, just for show, and calmly watches him disappear into the canyon’s shadow. It kills him all over again, this unconscious display of trust. He won’t let her die today.

Their pursuers don’t even notice him in his wraith form, pressed against the wall as they walk by. He’s smoke, nothing, a bunch of bits of things that used to be a person. Instead they approach their target; a deer wounded and helpless, tracked for miles until the wolves break her with exhaustion.

They don’t know that her herd has not abandoned her so easily.

“Eyes on purple,” one says, raising his rifle at the apparently unconscious sniper. “No sign of smoke. Requesting orders?”

They don’t even hear his body tear itself apart and put itself back together, even mere inches away. The only thing they hear is, “ _boo_ ,” as Reaper places his gun against a man’s spin and fires.

He tears through the first four like a scythe through wheat. Living up his name, he supposes. The fifth actually turns in time to fire, forcing him to dodge back into the shadows. They’re screaming now, formation destroyed, and he pops back into existence to dispatch two more. That’s half, but the element of surprise is gone.

He’s not fast enough to dodge an incoming rifle shot, but he fizzles out of existence before the bullets fully make it through his body. They keep going with most of their momentum, killing the man behind him. It hurts, briefly, but it’s already begun to fade as his body weilds its double-edged sword. Constant pain, and in return, constant healing.

With a rush of hot air, he invades the lungs of the nearest enemy, strangling her from within her own body. Asphyxiation takes too much time, something he is short on, and he instead uses her breathlessness as distraction. While she’s coughing up bits of him, he snaps her neck. Four left.

He kills them all in a whirl of bullets, a practiced move that leaves him not knowing where he ends and the gun begins. With that done, he drops the empty shotguns, meeting Widowmaker’s sharp gaze.

“Well done,” she tells him, in a voice that hides exactly how enraptured she is by the display. A slaughter like this shouldn’t take a woman’s breath away, but they are so beyond caring about those social norms it’s not even funny.

“Thanks,” he mutters. “You too.”

“I _was_ very good bait,” she says, and this time a smile almost crosses her lips.

He bares his teeth back. Not that she can see it. “Come on,” he says, crossing to lift her again. “Let’s get you out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reaper, at some point probably: "i'm batman."


	4. Fatal SpiderByte

Sombra slouches against the wall of the cave, the glow from her translocator the only light in their shared tomb. “Welp, it’s official. We’re going to die.”

“Why is it only now official?” Widowmaker asks, staring at the patterns the purple light makes in the ceiling.

“Because I’ve run out of emergency snacking peanut bags. I don’t know how to tell you this _amigos_ , but…we’re going starve.”

And it’s only funny because they’re going run out of air long before then.

The trio has been fighting in the hills, a place where they have to combine all their skill sets in order to be a effective strike team. Widow finds plenty of vantage points in the verticals of the terrain, picking off anyone that gets too close to Reaper. The wraith himself tears through targets in the close quarters, finding it even easier when his enemies’ weapons spark an electric purple. It’s going well, right up until it isn’t.

Once they’d reach the inner compound, they were met with the steadily flickering number of a self-destruct countdown.

“I mean, who even actually has a self-destruct protocol anymore?” Sombra asks as they run. “Like, that’s for evil villains on Saturday morning cartoons. Wait. Reaper, does Talon have a self-destruct protocol? _Please_ tell me we do, that would just be too good.”

Reaper ignores the grating fluff Sombra insists on throwing against his ears, and the two dash into the light of day with minutes to spare. They’d grab widow, duck into the closest cave, and have been here ever since.

At the time, it was only for shelter as an avalanche crashed down on their right side. But now it’s their grave, sealing them inside with no hope of getting out. Reaper’s tried everything. The first thing he does is claw against the way they’ve come, digging out handfuls of rock that do nothing to move the larger boulders sealing the entrance. Then he wraithed, pressing against every nook and cranny for _hours_ until he’s given up and slamming his fists against the airtight walls. There’s no way around it. They’re sealed in.

“Any word from Doomfist?” Widow asks him when he walks back to Sombra’s wall.

“Nothing,” he barks shortly.

They’ve been able to get a few scant words to Talon command and send a location, but an estimated time was never sent back. The last contact they’ve made was before they knew about the ticking clock that is their air supply, so Talon isn’t even aware of how close they are to an untimely death. Well, death for Sombra and Widow. Reaper may be able to last longer, his body repairing his cells even as they die from lack of oxygen, but even he can’t last forever.

It won’t come to that though. He won’t be the last one left alive. Not again.

He sinks down at Sombra’s side.

“Is it…an object?” Sombra guesses.

“Yes,” Widow replies, eyes on the ceiling.

“Is it smaller than a bread box?”

“No.”

“Is it larger than a bread box?”

“No.”

“…Amélie. Is it a bread box.”

“Yes,” Widow says faintly, shifting her head back down. “Your turn.”

Reaper groans. Dying might be easier if it was anyone besides them.

Sombra sighs, a lungful of their oh-so-precious air. “Never mind, I’m bored of this. Let’s play something else.”

Widow eyes the two off then, then sits down on Reaper’s other side. He can feel them both like this, feel the labor of their breathing through their sides. He’s tried to help the best he can, turning his lungs into a gaseous stew for minutes at a time so there’s one less person leeching off their air supply. He can’t hold that state for long, the rest of his body screaming for oxygen, but maybe in the long run it will buy them a few extra minutes.

It doesn’t seem enough when he’s pressed between the two suffocating women.

“I spy with my little eye…” Sombra begins, “…something purple.”

“Is it me?” Widow chances.

“Nope! Try again.”

“Is it you?”

“No, but warmer.”

“Is it that?” Widow casts her hand at the ceiling once again.

Purple light flows over their roof in waves, like light bouncing off water. It’s beautiful, really. Reaper can understand why Widow wants her last thoughts to be of it.

“You got it love!” Sombra says, and this time her voice is missing its usual enthusiasm.

She must hear it to. They both are so…tired. Reaper can see it in the way their eyelids droop, hands relaxing against folded knees. Sombra’s head drops against Reaper’s shoulder.

“…We really are going to die, aren’t we?” she asks. There’s no answer they can give she doesn’t already know. “Well. Shit. Anyone want to confess their undying love for me last minute?”

“…”

“No takers? Damn. Worst group death ever.”

She picks at her gloves while Widow watches her from around the barrel of Reaper’s chest. Her profile is beautiful in the half-light, despite how they’re all slowly fading.

Sombra sighs, but it takes more effort than before.

“Fine then. How about any last words?”

“Yeah,” Reaper grunts. “My last words, which I think paint a pretty good picture of my life up until this point, are ‘shut up Sombra’.”

“Uhg,” Sombra rolls her eyes. “You’re no fun Gabe.”

“Really? Everyone always tells me what a killer at parties I am.”

“I have some last words,” Widow says suddenly, to the surprise of both her companions. They sit, waiting, staring at the Sniper as she gazes out into the black of the room. It takes a minute, but finally she speaks again. “I think we are a good team. When we met, I did not believe we would be, but I also believe that somehow I am a different person than I was before. You two have changed that. If I am to die, I am glad I have you two at my side.”

Reaper is at a loss for words. Widow has never been particularly articulate, not one for grand speeches or cheesy one lines over a fallen foe. But, somehow, they’ve inspired something in her, to let her say this final thing before the lights went out in their dark hole-in-the-wall.

“It’s good you’re glad to have us, but I’d rather it didn’t involve me dying too,” Sombra jokes weakly, trying and failing to cut the tension in the room.

They lapse into silence, though not from social awkwardness. Reaper can feel it coming, the carbon monoxide buildup too strong to ignore. It’s everywhere, and Widow’s head slides down onto his other shoulder.

He hopes he won’t wake up. Let him die here, with them. It’s better than any…thing…e..l….s…...e……

* * *

White light smashes into the room. Widow and Sombra jerk on either side of him, lungs filling with new air. Reaper can hardly see, the inky black of his own eyelids doing nothing to prepare him. Years of training force him to his feet before the others can get up, and he’s able to see their savior.

Doomfist is there, sharp silhouette against the hole Talon has busted through. An agent is still chipping away, a giant drill strapped to her shoulders.

“Reaper,” Doomfist calls in. “It appears your team is sleeping on the job.” There’s humor in his voice, a layer that is undetectable unless you know him well.

“Apologies, sir,” Reaper wheezes, voice matching his note. “Won’t happen again.”

Doomfist smiles, and Reaper always thought there wasn’t enough human left in him to feel relief. But he was wrong.

He looks down at Widow and Sombra, still stirring themselves. In Sombra’s case, pushing herself off the floor since she’d been leaning too heavily on him. Typical. He reaches down and pulls them to their feet.

Doomfist approaches them. “Good to see you are well. We nearly couldn’t find your location, thanks to a local avalanche.”

“Yeah,” Reaper grunts. “We’re familiar.”

“Medical teams are on their way, now that we know you’re alive to be helped.”

“Thanks…sir…”

And suddenly Reaper doesn’t feel so good. His head is as light as air, but when he sways, he feels someone catch him on his right side. He looks to Widow, supporting him gently.

“Thank you, Doomfist,” she says stiffly. “We will go wait outside for them.”

She tries to guide Reaper toward the entrance, but his feet fail him. Turning his lungs to gas earlier must have taken more out of them than he thought. Sombra slips under his other arm, already bouncing back more sharply than a human has any right to.

“Yep! Thanks boss. We’ll take it from here.”

Doomfist raises an eyebrow, but says nothing more. Reaper feels himself being hauled out into the sunlight, and for once that thought doesn’t seem as awful as it usually does.


End file.
